Comments on: Servamus – Fearing the Image of the Vancouver Police

By: jeremy

jeremy — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:48:37 +0000

Incidentally, the person who identifies himself as “Jack Scribe,” who has nothing to hide, has an anonymous name and has used a false e-mail address to submit the comment. I do not post the email addresses of those who post comments, and am prevented by Canadian law from collecting them for any marketable purpose. They are only requested in order to prevent spam comments here. The lack of a genuine address is what delayed “Mr. Scribe’s” comment from being approved in a timely manner.

By: jeremy

jeremy — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:41:26 +0000

I’m not surprised by this comment. It’s not the first time we’ve heard the argument, “if you’ve nothing to hide, then you’ve nothing to fear.”

I don’t speed, I obey the lights, and I am an extremely courteous driver. However, there is a pronounced difference between fear of a ticket and a general and promulgated fear of the police being seeded among non-criminal citizens.

A colleague of mine referred to the above in the above comment as “an ostrich point of view.”

I have nothing to hide at the airport. I carry no weapons, have no evil plans, and am a model passenger and traveller. I don’t mind walking through metal detectors and I don’t mind being scanned when my jeans rivets or thin gold neck-chain set them off. But being pulled aside for a “random pat-down” is starting to go a bit far. And I will not submit to a random strip-search even though I have nothing to hide.

We have Charter protections to prevent law enforcement authorities from abusing their monopoly on force. The cutouts are a workaround by the law enforcement authorities that keep them within the Charter but still allow them to usurp an authoritarian role from which they’ve been excluded.

The uniform is to identify the person as a defender of the public. It should not be taken out of context and transformed into a symbol of fear on its own.

By: Jack Scribe

Jack Scribe — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:47:11 +0000

What a ridiculous slant you’ve taken on these cardboard traffic cop cutouts. ‘Fear of the police’?? Give me a break.

Perhaps we should remove all the decals from every marked police cruiser. Hey, drivers slow down when they see a police car in the area ‘out of fear’ for the police.

Heck, why don’t we seize all the police uniforms too if the mere image of the police alone (in this case only a cardboard cutout)invokes fear.

I have an idea….slow down, obey the lights and signs, use your turn signal and be courteous. Then you’ll have nothing to fear…but fear itself.